Lindy West

Oh, Pope Francis. We're all trying so hard to be into you—despite the fact that you are the figurehead of a historically oppressive international corporation that shelters pedophiles, stigmatizes safe sex, and encourages the mass marginalization of women and gay people—so why don't you just go all the way and really BE the progressive pope you've been cosplaying this whole time? Why do you have to get all POPEY on us with this anti-abortion shit? Hmph.

In his annual "state of the world" speech today, the pontiff explained that abortion is a "frightful" symptom of our culture's widespread wastefulness. In other words, to callous modern women, terminating a pregnancy has exactly the same impact as throwing away a used Clorox wipe with a pube on it. Cool minimization of both the reasons why women seek abortions and the emotional repercussions of those decisions, bro! Apparently the only things unimportant enough to justify throwing away are women's health, futures, and autonomy.

"Unfortunately, what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as 'unnecessary.' For example, it is frightful even to think there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day," the pope said, according to excerpts released by the Vatican.

...The comment on abortion was one of the few instances that Francis has addressed the issue in his 10-month-old papacy. Last September, he told an interviewer that the Roman Catholic Church needed to stop hammering on social controversies such as abortion and same-sex marriage and focus more on spreading God's love to all.

Alarm among Catholic conservatives that he was watering down the church's message on those issues led the pope to quickly reaffirm his opposition to abortion. Using the same phrase he employed Monday, Francis described abortion as a symptom of a "throwaway culture" that places little value on human life, the environment and natural resources.

Look. Abortion is not a contentious issue—not really. Either you believe women have the right to control their own bodies or you don't. Where you stand on that is where you stand on that, whether you're a cool pope or not. Right now, you're not.

None of this is the least bit surprising (the pope is anti-abortion!!?!?!?!?!?!?), but the beautiful pipe dream of Cool Pope has been fun while it lasted. So thanks, Pope Francis, for the reminder that even the best pope is still a pope.